


Just a Touch

by The_Buzz



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And Lots of It, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Broken Bones, Bruce Banner Angst, Bruce Has Issues, Descriptions of Injury, First Kiss, Hurt Bruce Banner, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Near-Suffocation, POV Tony Stark, Tony Has Issues, Tony Stark Angst, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 04:59:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10846968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Buzz/pseuds/The_Buzz
Summary: When Bruce and Tony are trapped under the debris from a bomb, Bruce can't afford to transform into the Hulk without risking Tony's life. To make matters worse, Bruce is badly hurt and help might not be on the way for a while.





	Just a Touch

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set somewhere between IM3 and AOU. It's my first stab at Bruce/Tony. Let me know what you think!

The first thing Tony noticed when he opened his eyes was that it was dark.

After that, sensations started filtering in with a bit more alacrity. His head and chest hurt, a lot. He was in the suit but the HUD was off. It was dark and he couldn’t move.

Shit. _Shit_. He couldn’t move. He was pressed face down into something hard and unforgiving by something equally hard and unforgiving. His breath was harsh in his ears, echoing off the inside of the helmet. Claustrophobia had never really been a problem for him before (and considering how much time he spent in a metal capsule, that was a good thing), but then he’d never been trapped alone in the dark while something invisible crushed the life out of him.

Instinctively he tried to squirm away but under the weight of whatever was _on_ him he couldn’t manage much more than a feeble wiggling of his arms and legs—which hurt. Not good.

In response to his movement there was a loud screech of metal and the pressure on his back increased, the pain in his side—bruised, cracked, broken ribs, who knew—ratcheted up another notch. He was in the dark and he couldn’t move and all he could think was _Afghanistan_ (trapped) and _space_ (dark and alone) and God, he was going to die like this, die not ever knowing where he was or if anyone would miss him.

“Tony?”

It was Bruce, and about two feet away from his head in the still darkness from the sound of it. That made him pause, panic receding slightly as he wondered how he hadn’t noticed there was another living, breathing person…wherever he was.

“Yeah. Uh. Hi,” Tony said, when his brain had calmed down enough to make words. His head throbbed with pain and fear. “Where are we?”

“You don’t remember?” Bruce said, his voice strained.

Bruce plus strained was never a good thing. Then again, Tony supposed, Bruce plus anything about this situation wasn’t a good thing.

“Mm,” Tony said noncommittally, remembering how to breathe again. At least he wasn’t alone. It was strangely comforting to think that if his arm was free, he could reach out and touch Bruce’s face.

“The lab collapsed,” Bruce said. “Do you remember that?”

“The lab,” Tony echoed, racking his memory. And then it started filtering back. Him and Bruce, checking out a lab that had been emitting strange radiation for several weeks. Avengers business. Said lab, a monstrously huge basement facility with a dozen floors, had turned out to house a number of AIM employees who had set a massive bomb off above them. Bruce had gone green and ten floors collapsed on top of them in a cascade of rubble.

Tony took a shallow breath, relief filtering in at the realization that not only was he not alone, but that rather than being trapped in some far off, impenetrable place ( _space_ ), they were stuck beneath the remains of a research facility in Idaho.

The downside was that the weight on his back was ten floors worth of rubble. There was no way he could blast through it, even if the suit was working perfectly. He could hear the slight hum of the reactor, but it was faltering. He had emergency power at best, enough to keep the suit from becoming a stiff, 200-pound metal coffin. But probably nothing more.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Tony said, his voice breathy, “but why aren’t you jolly or green right now?”

He could practically feel Bruce’s sigh.

“He came out when the bomb went off. Apparently ten floors of cement and metal landing on my back were enough to shrink me down. But there’s some room here. A more-or-less other-guy-sized pocket.”

There was a brief flutter of movement, as if Bruce had gestured. The light from the reactor on Tony’s suit was mostly muffled by his being pressed flush against the floor, but it meant that it wasn’t pitch dark as Tony had originally thought. Another thing to be grateful for.

He reminded himself of that as some distant part of his mind spun off into panic again. Space had been vast and empty but the sense of being surrounded by endless darkness was exactly the same, only now there was no wormhole to fall through, just more darkness and weight on all sides. Like space crossed with Afghanistan. Well, the cave part, anyway. Not the country. It was a nice county. The rubble around them was creaking ominously and he couldn’t figure out how he hadn’t noticed it before. God, this was not how he wanted to die.

 “Tony. Tony, are you with me?”

Bruce’s voice. An arm’s length away. Could reach out and touch him if his were free. Tony took as deep a breath as he could with his ribs and the pressure on his back.

“Yeah.”

"Are you hurt?" Bruce asked worriedly, confusion creeping into his tone. Tony hadn’t told him about the anxiety problems—well, he’d tried, but active napping had gotten in the way, and after that he’d been too afraid that Bruce would tune out again to make another attempt. Sting of rejection and all that. Bruce couldn’t really understand that Tony was holding on by a thread right now.

The sharp pain that blossomed in his side with every breath told him _yes, he was hurt_ , but he'd had far worse, and the pain had largely faded into the background of his fear and adrenaline. "I'm okay," he gasped.

“That’s good,” Bruce said cautiously.

“So why—why not Hulk out and bust out of here?” Tony asked, wrenching his mind back to their conversation.

Another hint of movement in the darkness. Bruce shaking his head maybe. He hissed in through his teeth before speaking. “The space isn’t exactly Hulk sized. The rubble shifted after I changed back. Everything dropped a few feet, closed in tighter. It’s not that stable.”

It took a moment for Tony to realize exactly what he meant. The invisible debris seem to press in closer and closer, suffocating him. He thought about reaching out and touching Bruce’s face and calmed down a little. “You change, I’m a pancake. Caught between a Hulk and a hard place. Especially when the rest of the debris comes crashing down.”

“Something like that,” Bruce said mildly. “I’d probably be fine, but you…”

 “Yeah,” Tony muttered.

“There’s a wrinkle,” Bruce said, a wince in his voice.

“A wrinkle,” Tony repeated incredulously, because his beleaguered mind couldn’t seem to believe that the situation could possibly get any worse.

“Do you have a light?” Bruce asked.

“Let me see,” Tony said. Emergency power was good for keeping the suit mobile, and for a couple of other low-energy features. He flicked a manual control inside his right gauntlet and light flooded from his visor. He lifted his head as best he could from his prone position and saw Bruce.

The other man’s head was, in fact, less than two feet from his. Bruce was on his back, naked and covered in dust. He was propped up on his elbows, his legs stretching out past him—and God. Bruce’s right leg was trapped mid-shin beneath a huge, jagged piece of concrete. A flash of white bone was visible in the gore.

Tony made a noise like “Guh!” followed by a, “Shit. Bruce. What. The fuck.”

“Like I said,” Bruce said, and now that Tony was listening for it he could hear the tension in Bruce’s voice, the iron-willed calm masking what had to be incredible pain. He didn’t sound strained because of the situation, he was suppressing the agony of a compound fracture trapped under a ton of concrete. “A wrinkle.”

“You could have mentioned that sooner,” Tony said. He forced himself not to think about how much pain Bruce had to be in or what he had to’ve gone through in life to be able to function even halfway normally like that. He felt an odd lump in his throat at the thought that Bruce was so much stronger than they all gave him credit for. God, Tony could barely think around the throbbing in his ribs and his head, and Bruce had sat there calmly walking Tony through his panic while suppressing horrific pain and somehow not letting the Hulk take over to provide him with immediate relief.

“Sorry,” Bruce said, grimacing. “It happened after I changed back. I was already awake.”

His voice was steady with its usual forced calm, but it wasn’t hard for Tony to picture the horror he was describing. How much pain he must have been in, and how hard he must have fought the agony and adrenaline to stop the Hulk from tearing out of him. All because Hulking out meant hurting Tony.

Suddenly none of Tony’s own problems seemed quite so important. An odd sense of calm rolled over him, muffling the buzzing panic. Bruce was in bad shape. It was up to Tony to solve this. He couldn’t afford to spazz out, not now.

“So. This wrinkle,” Tony said.

Bruce gestured vaguely at his leg, grimacing. “I can handle the pain, for now. But it’s… it’s pretty bad,” he admitted, as if being in pain after having your leg brutally smashed under a concrete slab was an unsightly weakness best kept under wraps. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”

Tony took another shallow breath. Just as he had wanted to reach out and touch Bruce for his own comfort, now, he wanted to close the distance to offer Bruce comfort of his own. But he was immobile, and Bruce would probably reject it anyway. He settled for adopting a falsely casual tone. One solution seemed obvious.

 “You know, the suit’s damaged”—creaking as bad as the rubble—“but it can withstand an impressive amount of pressure. There’s a good chance I’d make it, if you went green. Might be worth a try.”

“No.” Bruce’s response was forceful. In the beam of light from Tony’s visor he could see Bruce’s jaw clench, in determination or pain or both he didn’t know. Probably both. “No, Tony. It’s not worth it.”

“You can’t hold on like that forever,” Tony said.

“Obviously not,” Bruce said irritably, before visibly calming himself. One hand had wrapped around his injured leg, just above the knee, and was gripping it tightly. Tony felt another rush of awe mixed with pity mixed with frustration.

“I just meant—could be better, get it over with,” Tony said.

“No,” Bruce said again, shaking his head. The strain—which Tony now recognized was unremitting agony—was back in his voice. “It’s too risky. I could crush you. The rubble could crush you. If that slab moves, everything could come down. I can’t risk—you.”

Under normal circumstances something would have leapt in Tony’s chest at hearing that. Now, not so much. “Kind of in need of options here.”

“I said _no_ ,” Bruce snapped.

Tony fell silent a moment, watching Bruce in the light from his mask. The other man’s face was taut with pain, but there was no hint of green there.

“Did you have any other ideas?” Tony asked tentatively, not wanting to point out what Bruce already knew—that the Hulk was probably going to come out sooner or later.

“I was hoping you could send out a message,” Bruce said, a painful tremor in his voice. “Now that you’re awake.”

Tony pressed his lips together. “Sorry. I’ve got basic, manual functions only. No communication out.”

 “…Oh.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“What I need is more power,” Tony said, his mind clicking into gear for the first time, really, since he’d awoken in this hell hole.

Bruce looked at him wearily. “I don’t see an outlet.”

“No,” Tony said, his gaze traveling to where Bruce’s mangled leg was pinned by the concrete. It was hard to look at, honestly, the bone protruding jaggedly from a pool of tortured flesh. Blood was still seeping sluggishly from the wound, forming a dark puddle on the floor.

It was probably enough.

“What?” Bruce asked, following his gaze with an uncomprehending frown. That was worrying in itself—Bruce was usually as quick on the uptake as Tony himself.

“Gamma,” Tony said. “Radiation. Energy. I should be able to use it to supplement the reactor’s emergency power. It was built to get a boost from sunlight if need be, should be the same idea. At least give me enough to send out an SOS.”

Realization and horror had dawned at the same time on Bruce’s face. “You want to use my blood to power your suit. It’s not safe.”

Tony snorted, looking around. “Safe?”

“Not what I meant,” Bruce said, his voice thick with pain and exhaustion and that never-ending tension. “There’s no telling what it could do if you come in contact with it. You can’t risk it.”

“Do you have any _other_ ideas?” Tony asked again.

Bruce’s silence was answer enough.

“You’re not getting any better,” Tony reminded him softly, hating that he had to, especially when Bruce winced at the words. “This is our best chance to get out a message and get help. Sooner rather than later. Now. First things first. I have to get out from under this—thing.”

“Can you?”

“Like I said. Basic mechanical power,” Tony muttered, grimacing in his mask as he positioned his arms to press himself up. The slab on top of him—probably the other half of the slab that had landed on Bruce’s leg—was immensely heavy, and for a moment the suit creaked but nothing happened. He strained, willing the dim power remaining in the damaged reactor to work the joints for a little while longer. The pain in his chest ratcheted up with the increase in pressure, but he bit his lip and forced himself to keep going. Finally the slab shifted, slipping backwards and sending dust and debris raining down around him, and—

“Stop!” Bruce said breathily.

Tony froze, heart pounding, chest still singing with pain. “What? What is it?”

“Tony, if that moves—if everything comes down—I won’t be able to hold him back.”

Tony halted long enough to make an irritated noise. “I know that. I’ll be careful.”

Bruce didn’t argue, but somehow managed to look even more tense than before as Tony returned to slowly shifting himself out from under the slab. He got his arms under him, then gingerly eased himself forward, shimmying out from under the weight. His ribs and half a dozen minor injuries he hadn’t noticed sparked in pain, but he ignored them. Everything around them creaked and shook and sputtered dust, but before long he’d pulled his upper body free of the concrete, squeezing into the space beside Bruce.

“I don’t think it’s load-bearing. Not like the one I'm under,” Bruce reported as Tony’s head flopped down somewhere near his hip. When he got free they’d be lying next to each other, head to foot, in the cramped space.

“Good to know,” Tony grunted, digging his palms into the floor and pulling himself forward.

As soon as he was clear, the slab fell to the floor with a mighty thump and everything started shifting at once. Instinctively Tony threw himself over Bruce as chunks of rubble and dust and dirt rained down on them, pinging and crunching off the armor as the walls pulled in closer—but it wasn’t enough because Bruce screamed, actually screamed, hoarse and monstrous. The slab resting on his leg was tipping inward as if in slow motion, rolling the damaged limb beneath it. Bruce bucked under Tony, muscles clenching and swelling and Tony had a moment to suppose that he was about to find out just how much more pressure his damaged suit could take.

Then the shaking subsided, the walls and Bruce alike. Their little pocket of air remained, smaller than before but still intact, and Bruce was still human.

Tony rolled off him, crouching to turn around awkwardly in the small space.

Bruce was flat on his back, eyes closed, breathing harshly as the dust settled over him. His hands were balled into fists and his jaw was clenched tightly, the muscles in his neck corded. His leg was still trapped tightly, though the angle had changed, the concrete grinding into his mangled leg. But he hadn’t changed.

“Bruce,” Tony murmured, cupping his face in his gauntleted hand before realizing that the cold metal had to be far from soothing. “Hey. Bruce. Are you with me?”

Bruce groaned.

Better than nothing.

“It’s okay,” Tony went on, filling the silence because he honestly didn’t know what else to do. “We’re still here, you’re still you. You were right, kind of. Wasn’t load bearing. Well, not totally, anyway. We’re still here, you’re not a Hulk and I’m not a pancake.”

“Tony,” Bruce mumbled weakly.

Tony leaned into it, immediately attentive. “What is it?”

“Stop…talking…need to…concentrate.”

Tony bit his lip and fell silent, staring down at Bruce in worry. He wanted to take his hand, or cup his face—something to show him he was there—but it was hard to imagine how Bruce would take it. Bruce was always distant, physically, no matter how much time they spent together in the lab. Always stepping back when Tony stepped forward, shrugging off a friendly hand on the shoulder, moving away when Tony pulled himself up to sit on his lab bench. He never seemed to _mind_ , but the message was clear enough, and despite his reputation for testing boundaries Tony generally made an effort to respect them when they appeared.

Of course, in the handful of cubic feet they were sharing boundaries were more of a pleasant fantasy than a real possibility. Crouched in the tight space beside him, Tony’s armored knee was flush against Bruce’s bare, shuddering chest.

He tried not to think about how close they’d come. If the slab moved again, he strongly doubted that Bruce would be able to hold back another transformation. The sooner they got out, the better.

“I’m going to try charging the suit now,” Tony told him.

Bruce grunted weakly in response.

Tony fought back another icy wave of anxiety and shuffled to where Bruce’s leg was caught by the slab. To Tony’s untrained eye, it looked as if the pressure of slab might have slowed the bleeding. Despite the horrific, raw hamburger look of the flesh, the pool of blood beneath his calf was small. Which was good, considering he had nothing outside of the suit to make a tourniquet out of.

Carefully, Tony cupped a small amount of the blood in his gauntleted hands and brought it up to one the solar sensors built into his chest plate, just to the left of the dimmed reactor. The sensors were meant to respond to a spectrum of radiation, not just gamma, but with any luck it would be enough.

There was a buzz of static in his helmet and a fuzzy, low-resolution image of the HUD appeared, the words “LOW POWER” flashing in angry red at the bottom of the screen.

“JARVIS, send out an SOS with GPS location. Let them know it’s urgent. As in—”

The screen sputtered and went out again. Tony looked down. Bruce’s blood had dripped between his fingers to the floor, too distant now to register on the sensors. Didn’t matter. He’d gotten the message out, and JARVIS would handle the rest. Rhodey and Rogers (as the most reliable person Tony knew and the leader of the Avengers, respectively) would be getting messages any second describing the situation.

“It worked,” Tony told Bruce gratefully, turning around in the tight space so he was facing Bruce’s head again. He ended up sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest. The hunched position put an unpleasant amount of pressure on his injured ribs, but short of laying down beside Bruce or on top of him there wasn’t anywhere else to go. It wasn’t like he was about to complain.

“That’s good,” Bruce said faintly, opening his eyes and blinking owlishly in the light from Tony’s visor, a fine sheen of clammy sweat coating his face. He looked utterly, unfathomably, miserable.

“Help’ll be here in no time,” Tony said, because as much as he hated useless platitudes he was running low on accurate ways to sound reassuring. “Just got to hold on for a little while longer, there, buddy.”

“Hours,” Bruce said.

“Hm?”

“It’ll probably be hours.” Bruce paused to shudder, grimacing deeply as it jarred his leg. “To hear the message. Get to us. Dig us out.”

Tony couldn’t argue with that. He settled for resting a hand on Bruce’s shoulder, forgetting both that his cold gauntlet was far from comforting and that Bruce wouldn’t want any of it anyway. He shouldn’t have been surprised when Bruce flinched away.

“Sorry,” Tony said, wincing and pulling his hand back.

Bruce blinked, and murmured, “No, it’s okay.”

Tony huffed out a short laugh. “Look, Brucie bear, there is a time and place to humor me. Now is not that time.”

“You think I’m…” a twisted smile passed over Bruce’s pained features. “Believe me. If you were making it any harder to hold back… I’d tell you. Your life… matters much more to me than your pride.”

Tony gave him a long look, glad for the moment that his mask hid his face. Maybe he’d been wrong after all. He only said, “If there’s any way I can help, any way at all, say the word. Believe it or not, my life also matters more to me than my pride. At least by a little.”

Bruce grimaced. “The touch. It’s… nice. Helps. A little. Just wasn’t expecting it.”

“Really?” Tony said.

“It would not be in either of our best interests for me to lie.”

“I know, I know…” Tony reached out gingerly and rested his hand on Bruce’s shoulder again, caressing it carefully with the gauntlet. Bruce tensed slightly but then relaxed into the touch, closing his eyes.

“Bruce?” Tony prompted, gripping his shoulder slightly. He was pretty sure Bruce wasn’t passing out, but it was well within the realm of possibility.

“Yeah,” Bruce sighed. Tony sighed too, in relief.

“This okay?”

“It’s fine,” Bruce said, opening his eyes again to peer up at Tony’s mask. “I said it was fine. Why are you so worried?”

Tony had long ago learned how not to blush, but it was the closest he’d come in a while. How to admit that he’d spend months trying surreptitiously to close the distance between them, only to conclude that Bruce was far from interested? He settled for a lame, “Didn’t think you liked to be touched.”

There were enough horrors in Bruce’s files that Tony hadn’t been particularly surprised, either.

An odd expression flickered over Bruce’s pained features. Almost like he was embarrassed himself. “No, that’s not it.”

“Oh,” Tony said, confused but possessing of enough social graces to realize that now was not the time to demand, _So it’s me then?_

Bruce shut his eyes again, his voice small. “I need something to distract me. The pain, it’s… Talk to me.”

“How about science? I can talk about science,” Tony said quickly. If he had one talent, well, aside from being a genius and a prodigy at engineering, it was filling the silence, and that was the one topic that always flowed easily between them.

“Sure, Tony,” Bruce said, exhaustion creeping into his tone again. “Go ahead.”

So Tony spent the next hour explaining his newest set of plans for suit upgrades, focusing in particular on a couple of engineering quandaries he was in the midst of—how to better coordinate the prehensile armor, refitting the joints to be stronger but still as flexible, incorporating bomb disposal into the shoulder arsenal without disrupting the release of the rocket. But as he spoke, he could see the pinched look on Bruce’s face intensifying, until the lines of pain looked like they’d been etched in stone. Bruce’s occasional interjections, already far from carrying his usual insight, dropped off in turn.

When Tony broke off his monologue, it took a few seconds for Bruce to even notice.

“What’s wrong?” Bruce said finally.

“That’s not helping you,” Tony stated. It had helped him, a little, taking his mind away from the immediacy of the horror of being trapped in a dark, tiny pocket of air with a man who could lose control and leave him dead any moment. Actually, now that he was thinking about air, he could feel his chest tightening again—how long before they ran out? If there was none filtering in through the rubble, they might not have long at all.

“Sorry,” Bruce said, as if he had anything to be sorry for. “I thought it would. I just… I can’t focus.”

Tony bit his lip, brushing his hand over Bruce’s arm again. “I could talk about something else? Or how about you, you tell me something I didn’t know.”

“Not much to tell,” Bruce murmured.

“Somehow I doubt that,” Tony said. Bruce had been living with him in the Tower for months, now, and he still knew next to nothing about the man. Just as Bruce had dodged his touches back home, he’d also carefully sidestepped all of Tony’s efforts to learn more about his past or hopes for the future than could be gleaned from his SHIELD file.

But then, he’d been wrong about Bruce not wanting him closer. Why was still a mystery, but maybe that meant he’d been wrong about the rest too. Most people were easy to read. It was simultaneously fascinating and infuriating that Bruce wasn’t.

Even more so because he could see in Bruce echoes of himself. However different they seemed on the surface, Bruce shared a similar desire to make up for the carelessness of his past, and like Tony, he’d long since learned to accept the guilt and own it. While Tony fought off bouts of paralyzing anxious fear, Bruce’s demons made him withdrawn, depressed, and just as alone.

Despite that, Bruce had a calm acceptance of it all, of the world, of _him_ , that was undeniable. It was the last part that really drew him to the other man. As much as he knew Rhodey and Pepper loved him, they’d spent their lives managing him, and rebuking his more reckless decisions came as second nature to them. Made him hold back. Being with Bruce was…easy.

Impulsively, Tony brought his hand back to his chest and tugged off his gauntlets, careful not to touch any of the tacky blood still drying on it. Another quick movement unlatched his face plate.

“What are you doing?”

“Making this a little more personal,” Tony said.

Bruce closed his eyes and made a miserable noise deep in his throat. Carefully, Tony reached out again and rested his bare hand on Bruce’s arm. Bruce tensed in surprise, his eyes flying open. Tony could feel the gentle dance of muscle under his fingers as Bruce twisted to look at him better.

“If I lose control…”

“You won’t,” Tony said, with more confidence than he felt. Bruce looked awful. “This still okay?”

“Yeah,” Bruce said, confusion coloring his expression again, particularly as Tony let his fingers travel lightly from Bruce’s shoulder to his neck and then down to his arm in what he hoped was a soothing pattern. Bruce’s skin was warm but he shivered slightly under the touch. “I just… what are you doing?”

“Helping,” Tony said. “You said this helps.”

“Oh,” Bruce said, relaxing again. Then his eyes flew open and he said in a rush, “You don’t have to. You know that, right? Just because I… because I… I mean, I can hold him without this. You’re safer in the suit.”

Though Tony didn’t stop his slow massage, his brow furrowed in confusion. “I’m still in the suit. 97% of me is in the suit. Because you what?”

Bruce grimaced again. “You already know, don’t you?”

“Know what?” Tony said.

“Nothing,” Bruce said quickly, his jaw clenching. “Can we—not? Tony—”

Not sure what was happening, aware only that Bruce was still hurting, Tony instinctively brought his hand up to cup his cheek. Bruce closed his eyes miserably, rolling his face into Tony’s hand.

“It’s okay,” Tony said. “Hey. You’re okay. You got this.”

Several long moments later Bruce relaxed enough to suck in a breath. “Sorry,” he exhaled. “Sorry.”

“What just happened?” Tony said.

“I’m slipping,” Bruce admitted between long, deliberate breaths. “The pain, other emotions. Have to concentrate. On him. I can’t change. Not with you here.” He sounded like he was trying to remind himself of it.

“Tell me how I can help.” Whatever Bruce thought Tony already knew could wait.

“Stay here,” Bruce said in a small voice. His eyes were clenched shut again, and Tony got the distinct feeling that he was searching for purchase within his own mind. There was really no other explanation for the sharp-witted scientist to make a request that was so literally impossible to deny. Well, it was that or delirium, which was not much better.

“Not going anywhere,” Tony said.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

“I of all people can’t make that promise,” Bruce said, then moaned slightly as Tony ran a hand through his hair. He went on as if in a trance. “I never could. Before this, before the other guy, I couldn’t make that promise. But, Tony… I’ll hold him as long as I can. And I’m… I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” Tony asked.

Bruce just shook his head.

Tony frowned, pressing his lips together at the disjointed conversation. He only said, “I’ll keep doing this, then.”

“Thank you,” Bruce muttered weakly.

The minutes stretched by, each more interminable than the last. Tony kept up his gentle caresses, moving one hand through Bruce’s hair, down his cheek, and letting it wander over his shoulder and arm and chest. His other hand found Bruce’s, and he was surprised when Bruce gripped it tightly in his own. Like Tony was a lifeline. The other man kept his eyes closed, breathing harshly in measured gasps. Holding on.

As they waited, Tony couldn’t help but puzzle over the mystery that was Bruce, specifically whatever Bruce had been referencing obliquely in their last conversation. He hadn’t been avoiding Tony’s touch because he didn’t want it, but for some other reason. Because of something about him. Something he was sure Tony already knew. And he was sorry. Worried he was going to hurt him.

Usually, Tony prided himself in his ability to put the pieces together. Theory wasn’t exactly his thing, not like it was Bruce’s—engineering was much more about application and working with what you had—but there was an elegance to induction that he enjoyed and admired. In this case, there was only one answer that made any sense, but it was too much to hope for. Too much chance Tony was reading into the evidence what he wanted to see.

He gazed at Bruce’s tense, shuttered face as he ran his thumb lightly down the other man’s neck, feeling strangely guilty at being able to sit and ponder the situation while Bruce himself was locked in a silent, hellish battle. On the other hand, pondering Bruce’s feelings toward him was much better than letting himself calculate how much air they had left. The idea of suffocating in the dark was very high on the list of things that gave him panic attacks, and the air was already far too stuffy for his liking. It didn't help that every so often the debris around them groaned or creaked, sometimes sending dust or small pieces of pulverized lab equipment raining down on them. Reminding him that nothing about the situation was stable.

He took take some solace, at least, in the fact that Bruce need not share his fears. For all his suffering now, he would survive. Even if everything came down on them, Bruce would survive. The only reason he was suffering was Tony.

Watching Bruce grimace and gasp and struggle against the Hulk, against the primordial desire for relief from agony, a not-so-small part of Tony wondered if maybe his life wasn’t worth it after all.

Bruce thought it was, though. And Tony knew Bruce well enough to understand that the guilt that would haunt him if he let loose far outweighed the cost of his suffering now. He felt a strong and misplaced desire take Bruce in his arms and protect him forever.

He gripped Bruce's hand a little tighter.

"Hey," Tony said softly, after the silence had stretched out for too long. He was only human after all, and long silences had never been one of his strengths. He kept smoothing Bruce's hair over his forehead. "Bruce. You still with me?"

"Mm," Bruce said, opening his eyes and looking up at Tony's face. He sounded like he had left exhausted behind a few stops ago and it was all he could do to form the words. "I'm okay. Getting...a little easier. 'M getting used to it."

Tony nodded, shifting slightly with a wince of his own.

"That's how it always goes, isn't it?" Bruce said hollowly, his gaze far away. He sounded, however, far more lucid than he had an hour before. "It's unbearable, and then you get used to it. Until the next unbearable thing happens."

Another unexpected rush of affection, along with the desire to protect Bruce at all costs and hold him tight for good measure, surged through Tony. He had long been aware that Bruce had had a hard life, little as he knew of the details. But to hear Bruce speak so casually, so resignedly, of it was something else.

"You deserve better, you know," Tony said, the words slipping out as if of their own accord.

"Better than this?" Bruce asked, letting his eyes wander around the tight confines of their little prison, landing at the mangled, swollen mess where his leg met concrete. "Yeah, I'd have to agree."

Tony shook his head. "Not just this. I mean, this, obviously, but the rest of it too. Your life. You deserve to be happy."

Bruce huffed, a noise somewhere between a dismissive scoff and a laugh. "Every time I think that... I end up disappointed."

"What about now?" Tony asked, then at Bruce's confused look gestured at the pocket of debris and amended, "Not _right_ now. Staying in the Tower, your lab, your SI stipend?" He cut himself off before he could add himself to the list. "Is that unbearable too, or are you just waiting for it to be over?"

"Tony," Bruce said, as if Tony could read his whole answer in the word. When Tony just waited, frozen in place, he went on. "It's—it's really nice."

Tony waited.

"It's the happiest I've been in years," Bruce added a little apologetically, perhaps because Tony knew that even on his best days, _happy_ was a word that rarely made it into Bruce's vocabulary. "But I know it won't last."

"Excuse me?" Tony said.

"Tony, my life..." Bruce paused, searching for words. Or maybe shoving the Hulk back again. "For as long as I can remember. It hurt. It was hard. Since I was a kid. Sometimes it got better but it never lasted. I'm not—I'm not complaining. That's how it is, for me. I can’t expect it to last."

"So you think I'm just going to drop you. Get tired of my new toy," Tony said, irritable despite himself. How could Bruce not see that he was more special than that? That Tony didn't just let anyone in? Bruce deserved so much better than even Tony could give him. Then a worse thought occurred to him. "Or are you planning to leave?"

"I'm not," Bruce said wearily. Tony felt immediately ashamed for his outburst and carded his fingers through Bruce's hair again, making Bruce sigh. "I'll stay as long as you'll have me."

"Great. That's forever then."

Bruce's eyes met Tony's, more focused than they'd been in hours. 

"You don't mean that," Bruce said simply.

Tony ran his thumb over the back of Bruce's hand, feeling the ridges of bone beneath the warm skin. The truth was, he wanted far more than Bruce would ever give him. Didn't mean he'd hold back anything himself.

"Of course I mean it," was all he said.

A flash of anger passed over Bruce's weary face, sending a green glint into his eyes, and when he spoke there was a throaty growl to his voice that sent shivers down Tony's spine (and not in a good way). As if somehow, after hours of fighting back the agony and the need for relief, this was the final straw. " _Don't lie to me_."

"I'm not," Tony said quickly, and because there seemed no other way to prove his point in the next ten seconds before there was an incident, he bent over and pressed his lips to Bruce's.

It was a short, chaste kiss, both of their lips chapped and dusty, but it sent a thrill of warmth through Tony that pooled somewhere in his lower gut and stayed there. He pulled up, half of him wanting to smile and the other half terrified of Bruce's reaction and some left over part that defied the rules of mathematics still waiting with baited breath to be crushed to death between the Hulk and ten floors worth of debris.

Bruce was blinking up at him with dark brown eyes, his face utterly blank. Though Bruce was a quiet man, it was the first time Tony had ever seen him truly lost for words.

"I—I want you around," Tony said lamely. "Not—I'm not expecting anything in return. I promise. Just thought you should know, there's no reason to doubt my word. You have a place at the Tower. You'll have one as long as you want it. And if you get tired of me, which, let's face it, it's me, I'll put you up somewhere else. Whatever happens or doesn't happen, I want you to be happy."

Bruce opened his mouth and closed it again. Finally he sucked in a long breath and said, "Are you sure?"

Tony threw him a trademark smirk. "Of course I'm sure. I don’t kiss just any guy."

He fully expected Bruce to make a jab about his long and storied career in the tabloids, which did involve at least a couple of male companions whose names Tony had forgotten or never learned. Instead, Bruce winced and said, "You're trying to keep me calm, and you know that I already—well, you know."

Tony blinked, an entirely new kind of adrenaline setting his heart pumping. All those months, watching Bruce dodge deftly out of his way, all those signals of non-interest that Tony had read loud and clear... well, he'd been mistaken about the touch thing. Was it possible—?

He shook his head slightly to indicate that he didn't know, and squeezed Bruce's hand in encouragement.

Bruce colored slightly, but it was a reddish flush, not a green tinge. "That I have feelings for you," he stated clearly, seeming to make a decision. "I tried not to get too close but I thought it was obvious. I was afraid you'd make me leave sooner if you knew."

Horrible as the circumstances were, Tony couldn't help the grin that spread over his face. He cupped Bruce's face again fondly. "God. For a couple of geniuses, we're both idiots."

Bruce's face tightened into another grimace, and Tony's smile faded immediately. Bruce was still in tremendous pain. Hardly the time to celebrate. As if determined to kill the moment even more, the debris around them creaked loudly.

Bruce only said, "I don't understand."

"Understand what?"

"What you think you see in me."

Tony snorted softly, as if it were obvious. "You're perfect."

"No, I'm not," Bruce said, annoyance lacing his tone. "There is... there is so much wrong with me I wouldn't know where to start. The Hulk didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s me. It’s always been me. The only difference is that now it can literally destroy everything I care about.”

Tony stared at him, sympathy and frustration warring within him. He could understand Bruce’s doubt—God knew what Pepper had ever seen in _him_ —but he’d been trying for months to convince Bruce that he had no reason to worry. That Tony could see all of him and still wanted him around. He settled for saying lightly, “What? You’re the Hulk? I had no idea. Forget it. Forget everything I just said.”

Bruce rolled his eyes as if Tony had missed the point entirely. “You could have anyone. You shouldn't want me."

"Right, because _I'm_ the perfect specimen," Tony said sarcastically. "Ask Pepper, I think she'll tell you otherwise."

"You're a hero," Bruce said flatly. "When life got difficult for you, you came out stronger, better. Selfless. Not like me. No matter what happens, you're always...in control. Like I can never be. And that's all aside from your being a ridiculously wealthy, handsome, famous person who could be with anyone."

It was a good thing Tony had learned not to blush, because he was pretty sure he'd be beet red otherwise. "Okay, sure, fame, wealth, stunning good looks, whatever. We both know that doesn’t mean anything, not when it comes to a person's worth." His voice dropped in pitch as he went on. "As for the rest, you are a hero, Bruce, even if you don't see it. And I'm far from being in control."

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked.

"Panic attacks, anxiety, can't sleep," Tony admitted in a casual tone, as if all of those things hadn't been ravaging his life since New York. "I almost had one in here before you talked me down from it. You're looking for control, I'm sure as hell not your guy."

"Oh," Bruce said, peering up at him like he'd never seen him before. "You should have said something."

"I tried," Tony said in the same light tone that belied how much doing so had hurt him. "Remember, long story, guy in an elevator, turned out to be one of those you-had-to-be-there kind of things, I guess?"

"Oh," Bruce said again. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Tony said, both because he did feel a little better for the apology and because it was hard to imagine anything pettier than being angry with a man whose leg was being crushed under a concrete block.

They looked at each other. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, per se. More that they seemed to be bridging a _before_ and an _after_ in their relationship, and it was a moment that didn't need words. Something in the ceiling creaked again, determined to ruin this one too, and sent shower of dust down on their heads.

Then there was a loud _CCRRAAAACK!_ and before Tony had even registered that the concrete trapping Bruce was tipping in on both of them, grinding Bruce's leg under it, Bruce was screaming at the top of his lungs.

Three distinct thoughts passed through Tony's mind in a millisecond. First, Bruce was going to change unless he did something. Second, touch helped, nothing else did. And third, there was no way Bruce would ever forgive himself if he changed now.

Tony hit the emergency release on his armor and let it fall to pieces around him with the debris, then threw himself over Bruce's supine body, covering it with his own and wrapping his arms around him. (Careful as he could be of the leg getting ground by the slab.) Then he held tight and hoped for the best, hoped that between the full body contact and some part of Bruce's brain recognizing that Tony was now a thousand times more vulnerable than before, he'd be able to rein in the beast one more time.

Bruce bucked under him, muscles cording beneath Tonys' body, scream hoarse and inhuman.

Tony held tight, and waited, and Bruce's scream died out leaving him panting and sobbing into Tony's shoulder.

"God," Bruce moaned. His hands fisted into Tony's shirt and he pulled him down closer on top of him. Tony's ribs protested but he barely noticed.

"You're okay," Tony murmured, amazed himself that it was true. “We’re both okay.”

"That was... stupid..." Bruce gasped, but didn't let go. Tears had tracked down either side of his face. "God, Tony. That was stupid."

"Worked, didn't it?" Tony said. He felt lightheaded with relief.

They lay like that for a while, Bruce on his back, Tony wrapped around him. The slab had stopped moving little more than a foot over their heads, Bruce’s leg pinched cruelly at the acute angle where it met the floor. With the slab nearly horizontal above them, Tony did his best not to think about how it was like being trapped in a coffin.

"Help will come," Tony reminded Bruce, partly to reassure himself, and partly because Bruce's entire body was still trembling. "You got through that, you'll make it through anything. We'll make it." It was still about him, after all. Saving him. Bruce could have busted free hours ago to save himself.

Bruce sighed but didn't bother to respond, aside from holding Tony a little tighter.

It was only after another hour had passed that Tony realized he was still lightheaded, and not with relief. That the air around them was thick and stuffy and that there was considerably less of it than there had been before the slab had tipped. The dull ache in his head grew until it seemed ready to burst it from the inside out.

Bruce's breath was harsh under him, and Tony rolled to the side to give him as much room as he could to breathe. His own lungs were burning, the pain mingling with the stabbing in his ribs to make each inhale torturous. It was like having the reactor all over again, but worse, because there was no getting used to this. There was a finite amount of oxygen where they were buried and they were running out.

There was no getting used to this.

Bruce had been able fight the steady grind of pain, even the spikes of agony that each shift of the debris had brought. He’d gotten used to it, he said. But when the air ran out, and they both lost consciousness, no amount of willpower would stop the Hulk from ripping his way free.

It was wrong, so infuriatingly wrong, to think that Bruce could have endured so much only to be defeated by an autonomic body function over which he had no control. Through the cotton coating his brain, Tony could only hope that rescue would come before it was too late.

The minutes crawled by in slow motion.

Tony was dimly aware of a scraping noise coming from somewhere above him, growing louder and louder, but he couldn't place it. His world had narrowed to two feet of space in the debris, and Bruce's warm body beside him, and the painful in-out of each additional breath.

Bruce went totally limp.

A second later there was an explosion of green and pain and light and air and he was hurtling through it as a huge fist exploded from under him, punching through the slab above them. As he arced through the air he could see the bright glint of armor, the flowing red of a cape, and a walking American flag. Then it all went dark.

* * *

Tony awoke in a familiar, if not enjoyable, position. A slightly inclined bed, all white sheets, archaic-looking machines bleeping and blooping on either side of him. The gentle fuzz of the really good drugs. He blinked a few times. Hospital. That was the word.

As he stirred, activity grew around him, nurses saying inane things like "He's awake" and "get that blood pressure reading." They did tests and gave him water to drink and asked him questions.

He drifted and only really started paying attention when a familiar figure appeared by his bed.

Bruce looked rumpled as usual in a long-sleeved shirt and jeans that were a little too big—probably Steve’s. And there were dark circles under his eyes. But he was standing easily on two feet, his features smooth and free of pain.

He didn’t look relaxed.

“Hi Bruce,” Tony said cheerily, giving him a little wave. As much as he hated hospitals as a general rule, he loved being on the good stuff. He glanced down at himself in hopes of figuring out why he was on it, exactly. Ironically, his own leg was now suspended in a cast in a complicated looking contraption, his arm was strapped to his chest, and something was wrapped tightly around his ribs. When he really concentrated, he could feel the dull throb of pain in his chest, his leg, his shoulder, and just about everywhere else.

“Hi, Tony,” Bruce said, a note of regret in his voice. He seemed to be finding it hard to meet Tony’s eyes.

“What is it, what’s wrong?” Tony asked.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said, nodding at his injuries. “The other guy… I lost consciousness. I couldn’t hold him.”

“Well, sure,” Tony said amiably, his calm acceptance doing little to wipe the hang-dog expression from Bruce’s face. “Question, ah, why am I not _more_ crunched?”

“Cap and Thor and Colonel Rhodes had almost reached us,” Bruce said. “When the other guy came out, he punched the rest of the way through to them. You went flying but you didn’t get crushed.”

Tony nodded sagely as memories of his last, fleeting moments of consciousness—arcing through the air in a shower of rubble—returned. “So why the long face? We both made it.”

Bruce shuffled his feet and mumbled, “You almost didn’t. You were in surgery for eight hours to repair the damage. If the rescue team hadn’t been on their way, already so close to us, if it had happened any sooner… I should never have let you take off your suit. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

Tony pushed himself up slightly on the pillows, fixing Bruce with a serious glare. “None of this is your fault. Don’t you dare blame this on—on you.”

Bruce shrugged, as if to say, _too late_.

“Hey,” Tony said bracingly, snagging Bruce’s arm with his good hand. Bruce, who had been fidgeting, stilled as Tony slid his hand down to catch Bruce’s own. “You could have changed before. All those hours, God, I don’t know why you didn’t. I don’t know how you didn’t.”

The long nightmare under the debris already seemed impossible.

“It was you,” Bruce said, staring down at their clasped hands like they belonged to someone else. “I couldn’t let him hurt you. The more you made yourself vulnerable, the harder I had to try. But it didn’t matter. I couldn’t stop him.” His voice hardened. “ _That’s_ the problem with me, Tony. That’s what you don’t understand. It doesn’t matter how good I try to be. The monster is inside of me and it can always hurt you.”

Tony narrowed his eyes, wishing for the first time that he was on just a little less of the good stuff, because he needed to make sure _Bruce_ understood. “You could have killed me. You didn’t. You let yourself go through hours of literal torture to keep that from happening. So, in my book, that’s actually two times you’ve saved my life now. First as the other guy, this time as you.”

Bruce pulled his hand away, leaving Tony’s fingers tingling slightly where the pressure had been, and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not worth the risk.”

Tony sat up straighter, pushing himself up on the pillows, ignoring the pain that cut through the fuzz of the opiates. “So that’s it? I don’t get any say in this?”

Somehow Bruce hunched even further in on himself. “No.”

“Bullshit,” Tony snapped, making Bruce flinch. He felt bad for a second, but not bad enough to stop. “When we were down there… every time I got closer, your control got better. I kissed you and you came right back from the brink. So first of all, that’s not an issue.”

Bruce was staring at him with wide, brown eyes. He dropped his gaze as soon as Tony’s eyes met his.

 “I’m not scared of you. I’m not scared of the other guy,” Tony said. “I know you are, but God, if there was ever a test of your control, buddy, you passed.”

Tony expected Bruce to stand there and keep arguing, to bring up all the reasons it wouldn’t work, to remind Tony of how damaging the Hulk could be, and Tony had already opened his mouth to cut him off.

Bruce crossed the distance between them in an instant and pressed his soft lips against Tony’s. The kiss lasted only a moment before Bruce pulled away, his cheeks coloring.

Tony wrapped his hand around the back of Bruce’s neck and pulled him back, catching his lips with his own, deepening the kiss and pulling his fingers through Bruce’s hair. Bruce hummed happily and drew closer.

When they broke apart, Bruce looked dazed, but a small smile played on his lips.

“Wasn’t so bad, was it?” Tony asked, grinning cheekily. The soaring feeling in his chest had little to do with the drugs.

“No,” Bruce said, his smile widening. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“And you’ll come back with me to the Tower and not be weird about all this,” Tony said.

Bruce nodded, a little more tentatively.

“Good,” Tony decided. “Now kiss me again.”

Bruce did, and Tony’s worries melted away.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://starkly-tony.tumblr.com)!


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